


Alpha

by PlotQueen



Series: Alpha [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha issues, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-24
Updated: 2012-09-24
Packaged: 2017-11-14 22:43:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlotQueen/pseuds/PlotQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles comes home from college for the first time in a year. The only trouble is he's brought another Alpha home with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alpha

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ivyadrena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyadrena/gifts).



Stiles sighs as he passes the cheerfully painted ‘Welcome to Beacon Hills’ sign. He’s running three hours late, which is exactly the plan. Get home, see his father for a few minutes before rushing him off to work, and then waiting. He doesn’t think he’ll have to actually wait much at all, all things considered.

But he’s put this off for as long as he can. He played hooky over spring break, signed up for a summer internship, and purposefully halfway bombed a midterm just to avoid Beacon Hills and its alpha. Dad told him under no uncertain terms that he _would_ be home for Christmas.

The or else was naturally left unspoken because his father knew that Stiles could come up with better (worse), more creative (so much more) threats than he could ever hope to dish out.

He catches himself before he makes the turn towards the Hale House from habit, something twisting in his gut to know that he wants to see Derek first, even before his father, but that he can’t. Derek, who, with everything that has ever happened between them, he’s been avoiding for ten months. He’s avoided everyone, but the pack is only incidental. Derek is the one he’s worked hardest to find ways of not speaking to.

So Stiles forces his hands to stop shaking and turns the Jeep down another familiar road, and then another, until he pulls into the driveway. _Home,_ he thinks, feeling safe for the first time in a long time as he sits there a moment with his hands on the wheel.

Then the front door is opening and his dad is standing there, warm yellow light framing him from behind. Stiles waits maybe a moment before jumping out of the Jeep, his backpack clutched in one hand as he heads for his father. He doesn’t even pause to drop the bag, just barrels up the steps and flings both arms around his dad for the first real hug he’s had since he left home the Christmas before.

His dad gives as good as he gets and, if only for a moment, Stiles feels comfortable in his own skin.

Dad pulls back with a sigh and a wry grin, leather gun belt creaking at his waist. “I almost thought I’d have to wait to see you in the morning,” he tells Stiles.

Stiles grins. “What can I say?” His free hand jiggles against his thigh. “I like to make an entrance.”

His dad pulls him into the house; nothing has changed and Stiles soaks it in for a moment, breathing deeply and trying to memorize the things that he’s almost forgotten after so long away from  home.

“I wish you could have gotten here earlier,” his dad starts apologetically as he grabs his jacket from where it was thrown across the back of the couch.

Stiles has to hide the wince; knowing that he’d been so late on purpose is a little more than he can stomach when he thinks about it. Instead he tries to play it off. “It’s cool, Dad.”

“Well, you got here in time for me to see you for a minute—“

“And to get a Stilinski hug,” Stiles interjects. “Because everyone knows a Stilinski hug is the best in the world.” He doesn’t complain when his dad gives him another.

And like that it’s over. His dad is out the door and in his cruiser on the way to the station leaving Stiles as the one framed in the light from the front door. He closes it, hating the way it clicks closed with a note of finality. Then he thumbs the light switch and turns the warm yellow lights off. He doesn’t need them, not for this, not now.

In the dark he climbs the stairs to his room, drops the backpack by his desk, and sits down in the chair to wait. He won’t have to wait long. He knew that before he ever came home.

xXx

He’s on the other side of town when he smells it: the sharp, heavy scent of another alpha. If he had hackles as a man they’d rise and stand on end, but he doesn’t. It’s not like he can simply shift and hunt, either. Derek is fairly certain that if he suddenly turned and burst fully furred from his clothes the good shoppers of Safeway would collectively die of shock.

Or hunt him down.

Neither is a prospect Derek can look forward to, so he does the next best thing. He puts the basket with what was supposed to be his dinner down and walks out, nose seeking, nostrils flared, as he searches for the source. He leaves the Camaro in the parking lot and goes by foot. First it goes north, then west, and then it stutters roughly where Derek would normally go home. His curiosity at this almost outweighs the surging wolf in his veins.

Derek and his pack have held the territory successfully for four years now, peacefully for nearly two. The last thing he needs is a rogue alpha making an attempt at taking it, or harming the civilian population. Then it turns east. For a moment Derek wavers in confusion, wondering if somehow the other alpha was passing through and took a wrong turn, or had simply not realized it had strayed into a held territory and left again upon realizing it.

Then he realizes that his ever more swiftly falling footsteps are bringing him closer to a place he hasn’t visited since he crawled through a window nearly a year before. Derek breathes in sharply. Today, he knows, is the day Stiles was coming home. He’d told himself that he would give the younger man a day before climbing through his window and making demands, for old time’s sake of course, but when his nose turns him down the road to the Stilinski home Derek throws that resolve out the metaphorical window and _runs_.

It gets stronger the closer he comes to Stiles’ home, making an iron band clench around his chest. An alpha, and Stiles. It can’t be a coincidence. Fear rises because the only thing that consistently has harmed his pack is Stiles and his frail, fragile human condition. It rises quickly, because this is the only thing that Derek thinks could possibly still break them all.

He hits the driveway in a fury, eyes flashing violently as the stench of alpha fills him. There isn’t the familiar scent of Stiles at all despite his Jeep being parked there, the house is dark and—

And the window to Stiles’ room is open, whether in invitation or taunt Derek can’t decide.

It’s dark enough that Derek doesn’t care about being discreet. Instead he makes a running leap, easily gaining the second floor roof teen feet from the open window. He scrabbles towards it, claws sliding out, teeth lengthening into fangs, a low rumbling growl building in his chest. The claws hook into the window frame as he slides himself through to land surefooted, crouched, ready to do battle.

Then he blinks.

The room is empty save for one person, but the scent of _alpha_ reeks throughout it.

He hesitates, the fear inside of him changing abruptly as Derek's mind begins to catch up. Fangs withdraw, claws go as well, and the red angry glow mutes itself as something inside of Derek curls in on itself and howls in anguish.

In the chair at the desk Stiles looks up at Derek. For a moment his eyes flash yellow from the light of the streetlamp, then they start to glow crimson.

xXx

He hears Derek well before Derek arrives. There’s an almost comforting familiarity in the pounding of his boots against asphalt, then concrete, then grass. Stiles waits for it stoically, listens intently when Derek leaps, then shuffles over and darts into his room. The aggression is expected. He isn’t—

He isn’t pack. Not anymore, if he ever was. Stiles likes to think he was.

Now he’s a foreign alpha invading the territory of a grumpy, territorial, brooding, sourwolf.

He can pinpoint with exact, painful accuracy the exact moment that Derek realizes that the creature he was hunting isn’t an interloper intent on hurting him, hurting Stiles, invading, or one of a dozen things a rogue wolf might do. He knows he’ll always be able to tell, because now Stiles, too, can hear the rapid beat of Derek's angry heart, and then he can hear the flutter, the stutter, the absolute pause as Derek loses tooth and claw and begins to dominate the alpha werewolf that lives beneath the skin.

Stiles _wants_ to drop his head into his hands. To scrub at his face, to bare his throat to Derek and beg him… For something. Stiles isn’t exactly sure what, and that is one of the biggest reason he didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to face Derek. Stiles always thought if some day he did decide to let his humanity go, it would be Derek turning him. Derek, biting him, Derek accepting him—Derek, period.

Instead he is one alpha werewolf sitting in a chair, facing another alpha werewolf, who crouches in front of his window. Stiles raises his eyes slowly and lets the wolf within shine through.

He’s not sure what he expected, but the agony in the other man’s eyes was never on that particular list. It’s instinct, human instinct this time, making Stiles start to stand, to move to Derek, to reassure him. The gesture is aborted abruptly when Derek’s eyes flame red again. Stiles carefully lowers himself back into the chair, hands clutching at the armrests in a white-knuckled attempt to show he means no harm.

He flinches when a snarl erupts from Derek’s mouth, but Derek makes no attempt to attack him. Hell, Derek doesn’t make a single move to come closer, actually stands and shuffles back to the wall beside the still open window and kind of clutches it. Stiles does his best not to wince at the way Derek’s claws dig into the drywall. If he’s alive in the morning he’ll fix it.

If not? Well, he won’t worry about it.

“Stiles.” His name is torn from Derek’s mouth. It actually sounds painful in the empty air between them. Stiles doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything.

_“How?”_

This question? Stiles is prepared for. It doesn’t make him any happier to have anticipated the most important question that Derek would ask him before killing him or running him out of town. Stiles’ fingers convulse on the vinyl beneath them. The answer he’s about to give is going to hurt them both, rip open unspoken wounds that have grown between them since last Christmas. He doesn’t know anything else to say, though, so he says it.

“You remember the guy I was seeing before Christmas?” Stiles ask, proud of his carefully neutral tone.

Even without the fact that Stiles is now a werewolf, Jeremy is a sore point between the two of them. The fact that Stiles had been lonely enough to even look for something, someone, was a sore point. The fact that Stiles had basically cut off all contact with Derek so soon after they had it out is more like a festering wound than a sore point.

Derek nods though, still in control, eyes still a burning red. A little redder than before, if at all possible. The sharp tang of anger rises, wafting towards Stiles on the cool air breezing in through the open window. It brings with it the thicker heat of jealousy, the blunter scent of frustration, the sweet roll of something Stiles doesn’t want to identify from Derek, not anymore.

He cuts through it numbly, efficiently. “He was a werewolf.”

“Was?” Derek asks.

The smile Stiles gives him is definitely wolfish, little more than a vicious baring of teeth as his eyes flare again to distort everything in the near darkness to crystal clarity. “Was,” he answers with venomous finality.

Stiles bites back the angry snarl thinking of Jeremy nearly always brings. “He convinced himself we were cosmically destined mates and had his alpha bite me.” He resolutely ignores the rising tide of memories, the fangs, blood, screams, the way he had screamed. They aren’t good memories; Stiles hates them more than anything, even the night Gerard Argent had kidnapped him.

He shortens it down as much as he can. “It took, I didn’t die.”

Any other day Stiles would appreciate how humiliating the whole episode was, once you get past the part where he was kidnapped, attacked, mauled and then turned against his will. (And the part where it was close enough to the full moon that Stiles’ first instinct was to shift and tear the son of a bitch who was responsible for this to pieces. Really, Jeremy didn’t know Stiles at all if he thought Stiles would go peaceably into the pack. _He already had a pack._ )

But Stiles, really, of any human he’s ever known, should have been able to tell his sort of boyfriend wasn’t entirely human, was a motherfucking werewolf.

His eyes lift, seeking Derek’s for a moment before the older alpha closes his, blocking the angry bloody red. When he opens them again they’re green, and just as broken as they were when he realized what Stiles is now. Stiles’ eyes are good enough to see that, even with nothing more than a street light to break the darkness.

He looks away. Stiles can’t stand what he’s seeing there—it hurts too much to face.

Silence stretches for a few minutes as Stiles tries not to fidget. Werewolf or not, he still can’t stand to be still. Derek’s breathing is rough when he speaks again, this time the words torn from him unwilling, the undercurrent of violence painting them viscerally. “Who’s the alpha?”

Laughter, as bitter as it is, probably isn’t the best answer, but for a long moment it’s all Stiles has. If he hadn’t given Derek one of the most unexpected shocks of his life it might have been alright, because really Derek shouldn’t be asking that question. Derek might not show off that fact that he’s a civilized, _educated_ werewolf, but he is.

Stiles’ face twists. “You know how Scott spent months pissed because you killed Peter instead of him?” Stiles throws out, sounding  for all the world like he’s asking about the weather. “Yeah, no. Killing the alpha that makes you doesn’t work. It just makes you an alpha yourself, whether you’re ready for it or not.” The laugh now sounds broken and watery, but Stiles can’t help it. “So, it doesn’t matter anymore. As soon as I had enough control I killed him, too.”

He smirks a little, praying that it’s not as wrecked as it feels, now raising his face again to meet Derek’s eyes, because if there’s anything at all that might lighten the tension in the room it’s this. “I'm the alpha now.” He tries to smile on top of it, tries to make it genuine, tries to throw them both back to when the only alpha in Stiles’ life _was_ Derek and he was nothing but a gangly human boy trying to run with wolves.

But his voice cracks in the middle of it, because Stiles knows exactly how badly this fucks _everything_ up.

It fails completely, the tension just ratcheting up. In fact, it begins to shift into a palpable ache in the air between them. And maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, knowing that Beacon Hills is too small for a second alpha. Hell, that Beacon county is almost entirely comprised of Hale pack territory. That once he left this time, he’d never come back. Yeah, it probably wouldn’t suck so much if Stiles didn’t know exactly what Derek’s mouth felt like against his, what he sounded like when Stiles’ hands were on him, the way Derek had said Stiles’ name the one time they—

He wrenches himself away from that line of thought and memory. He had control, Stiles reminds himself. He’s not going to make this harder for Derek, or for himself, really. Nails slowly lengthen until the curved tips of his claws shred at the armrests he’s still clinging to. The silence stretches into what feels like hours as Derek continues to stare at him with stricken eyes until Stiles simply cracks and takes it all into his own hands.

He won’t make Derek have to say anything, to tell him what he already knows. This isn’t Derek’s fault and Stiles isn’t going to make him deal with it. Stiles can deal with it on his own; just like he’s already been doing.

He breathes in and takes everything away from Derek. “I, uh, have something arranged for when I leave. I know I shouldn’t have come, or at least I should have declared myself to you or something. But it won’t happen again,” he rushes on, ruthlessly ignoring the pounding of Derek’s heart as he just fucking deals with it.

“There’ll be an accident and I won’t have to come back again. But it’s my _home_ , Derek. I just…” The words catch in his throat and Stiles clears it, trying to shake free the anxiety that has settled there.

“It’s just for Christmas,” he whispers. “After that I'm gone. I just—I-I wanted to see my dad one last time. I wanted to say goodbye.”

The immediate, sudden, “No,” rocks Stiles back where he sits. It’s strangled, harsh, and hurts him more than words can say, making Stiles’ fingers curl, claws biting down until they hit metal as he stifles a whine.

“Derek, please,” he breathes, eyes honey brown with no hint of wolf. Begging, without shame.

But Derek is still clutching the wall where he stands, head rocking back and forth, eyes desperate and angry. Stiles closes his eyes and lowers his head, bites his lip until it bleeds, tongue slipping out to lap at the coppery tang, cleaning the wound as he exhales painfully.

He sighs out a shaky, “Okay,” like he’d expected this all along and stands, grabbing the backpack as he does so. It hurts to know that leaving his duffel in the Jeep was the intelligent thing to do.

Bitterness wells inside of him, the salty sting in his eyes the only outward sign of how he’s feeling. Not that Derek can’t hear how his heart keeps tumbling along instead of beating the normal staccato beat he’s learned over the last ten months. In the midst of it Stiles realizes that he’ll never see his father again. His heart stutters even more. It’s a good thing he’ll never see him again; Stiles doesn’t know how he could ever face him after leaving this way, tonight.

 _But fuck, it hurts,_ Stiles thinks. He forces himself to the door anyway.

xXx

Stiles gets as far as the door before Derek reacts, his brain finally catching up with the things Stiles has actually been saying. He finally understands that Stiles was asking his permission to stay, just for a few weeks, while Derek’s inner voice kept the fact that Stiles was now a wolf, an _alpha_ werewolf, on repeat. He processes Stiles’ unsteady words, the fact that Stiles is about to fake his death and leave forever, and—

He just moves.

One hand covers Stiles’ on the doorknob before the younger man can even begin to turn it, the other hand is hot at the small of his back, a firm pressure, needy where fingers curl into the shirt as if to keep Stiles from leaving. “No,” Derek manages before laying his forehead against the nape of Stiles’ neck. Just no.

No, Stiles can’t leave; no, Stiles can’t stay away; no, Derek can’t let him go.

It takes him a moment to realize that he’s said all of this out loud and that Stiles is so tense in front of him that it feels like he might break apart. He feels Stiles’ fingers beneath his grip the door knob tighter, almost making the metal of it creak. Without another thought Derek presses his forehead more firmly against Stiles’ neck.

“I let you leave already, and look what’s happened,” he tells Stiles. “You’re crazy if you think I'm going to let you leave this time.”

The tension leaks out of Stiles a little, his shoulders dropping a little, his heart slowing a bit. “I still have three semesters left,” he informs Derek breathlessly, like he can’t believe Derek would even consider this, much less say any of it.

Derek’s hand leaves the small of his back, reaches for the backpack still clenched in Stiles’ left hand, carefully loosens fingers and lets the bag drop. His fingers wrap around Stiles’ wrist, covering the rapidly beating pulse there. It reassures him, the hard flutter under the soft skin. Stiles turns until his back is pressed against the door itself, Derek’s hand now on his other wrist, and his other hand clutching the t-shirt that Stiles is wearing.

“But after that you stay,” Derek says, a little desperate. He’s lost so much already, he doesn’t think he can lose Stiles, too. “I’ll, I’ll roll—“

_“No!”_

Stiles’ immediate response is harsh and sudden and nearly makes Derek flinch simply because this? Isn’t how the Stiles he knows is. Stiles can be assertive, but not in his face with blazing crimson eyes, like the thought of Derek even considering rolling over for him is repugnant.

“No,” Stiles says again, softer, the red fading from his eyes again. “You were my alpha before all of this, right?” He continues on without waiting for confirmation. “You’re still my alpha.” There’s a possessive twist to the phrase that makes Derek’s wolf writhe inside of him.

Then Stiles lifts his head, tilts it to the side and bares his own throat. It’s really the ultimate act of submission, because from here Derek could simply kill him. This close? There’s no way for a werewolf, alpha or not, to escape the fangs that are suddenly pushing out of his gums. For a moment Derek hesitates, because he doesn’t know if Stiles understands what he’s offering, or maybe if Stiles just doesn’t care because this shit always happens to them and it’s really getting old.

Then he feels Stiles’ hands on his shoulders, Stiles fingers clutching the well-worn leather, and pulling him closer. Derek lets go of all hesitation and shoves his face against Stiles’ neck, breathing deeply. It’s sweet, because Stiles has obviously been eating sugar recently, but beneath that is warmth and grass and sunshine and heat and _Stiles_. He sets his lips to the warm skin, tongue laving Stiles’ pulse.

The tips of his fangs scrape over skin. Derek feels Stiles’ throat vibrate in a low moan as Stiles tugs on his jacket even harder. Between touch, taste, sound and the hot wall of Stiles’ body pressed against the door, Derek can’t stop himself. He doesn’t even want to.

He presses a wet, open mouthed kiss to Stiles’ throat and then sinks fangs in, his wolf howling as he lays claim to Stiles. Blood wells up, thick, rich, and full of the overwhelming sense of pack as Stiles surrenders. His teeth remain for a moment, drowning in the sound of the whine that slips from Stiles’ mouth, before Derek releases him. His tongue laps at the wound in broad strokes, the blood slipping freely for a moment before beginning to slow and stop.

The healing is a mix of Derek and Stiles’ wolf, but the mark remains even after the healing is finished, Derek’s tongue catching the slight, reddish indents left from his teeth. It’s unbearably intimate. Derek’s breath catches, his mouth stills and he presses his face to the claiming mark.

Slim, nimble fingers wind through his hair as Derek settles his body into Stiles’.

“We can make this work?” Stiles is hesitant, but not afraid.

Derek nods into Stiles’ shoulder before pulling back to seek Stiles’ eyes with his own. He presses his mouth to Stiles, licking his way inside as he presses Stiles harder against the door. Can he make this work? Derek made a pack of misfit teenagers fucking work. So yeah, he can make this work. This? Will be easy as breathing. All he has to do is make sure Stiles understands that.

So he offers, “My mother’s parents were both alphas.”

Stiles smiles, sudden, brilliant, and fleeting. “Really?” he asks.

Somehow Derek is sure that Stiles understands exactly what he means.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumble with me](http://plotqueen.tumblr.com).


End file.
